Remarkable life in anyone’s language
THE first time Loretta Fabbro came to Townsville, she had to eat a lot of humble pie.
Loretta was the eldest of all her cousins in Ayr and very much used to being the matriarch.
“I was boarding at St Pat’s on The Strand – the school with the million- dollar view,” she laughed. “But I didn’t appreciate it at the time. All I kept thinking about was how I wanted to go home.
“I’d gone from a school with about 42 kids to one with 600 or something – and I wasn’t the boss any more.”
Loretta’s father was born in a town called Vallonara in northern Italy and he came to Australia in November 1949.
“He would cut cane in North Queensland from the Burdekin to the Innisfail area and once the crushing period was finished, dad went down south and worked at Port Kembla steelworks,” Loretta recalled.
“While he was down there he went to a dance in western Sydney and that’s where he met my mum. Mum was born in Rouse Hill but her parents were Italian.”
In 1955, he and his two brothers bought a cane farm at Jarvisfield, Ayr.
All three families lived under the one roof. “Imagine that today,” Loretta laughed.
Because she lived with her Italian family, Loretta started school in Ayr unable to speak English, before her father decided to hop on a ship with Loretta, her brother, sister and mother, and go back to Italy to help his parents on their farm.
“So I had to go to school in Italy and we stayed there until April 1965,” Loretta said.
One of her uncles then decided to buy a business at Clare – Minuzzo’s Carrying Company – and the family returned to help with that business.
“I went to Clare State School only speaking Italian again,” Loretta said. “Luckily, my cousin Johnny, who was the year below me, interpreted everything for me until I could speak fluent English.
“I’m a talker though, so I picked it up quickly.”
Loretta went to high school in Townsville and then started a job at the ANZ Bank in Ayr.
She married in 1977 and had two sons, Russell and Andrew.
When the boys were young, John Honeycombe asked Loretta to consider selling real estate and she became the only woman on the Burdekin at that time to do so.
“You can imagine how that went down,” she laughed.
“To be honest, people were really good and I was treated as an equal.
“I’m determined too, and I don’t like to fail so it was hard but I made it work. I had lots of family support too.”
Eventually, when her youngest son took on an apprenticeship, Loretta decided it was time to branch out so she returned to Townsville to work for North Ward Realty before going to Ray White Townsville City as an independent contractor in 2005, winning Ray White’s No. 1 Townsville agent title in 2008. She now works for RE/ MAX Excellence.
“I moved to Townsville on my own but now I have my family all here,” she said.
“And I’ve made lots of friends here. Anyone who knows me knows I love to catch up for coffee with people.”
Loretta said she loved the fact Townsville is still a big country town.
“I just like what Townsville has to offer,” she said. “I feel so blessed to live here.”